Slow Boat

Today is May 1st. May Day.  Mayday. That's a phrase we hope to avoid saying!

We're humming "Born to Run" as our canal boat cruises past Asbury Park, headed for Sandy Hook, NJ, and then . . . New York Harbor.  Sportfishing boats are zipping past us.  Offshore we can see tankers and cargo barges on a parallel course.  Jumbo jets lumber overhead. A helicopter hovers near the Atlantic Highlands.  And the radio is crackling, as the Coast Guard announces, "All stations, all stations, motor vessel Blackberry Blackout has deployed an EPIRB (emergency transponder), be on the lookout, and be prepared to offer assistance."

The waves are too much for poor Blackberry, but Dragonfly is taking the swells like a champ. The sensation is like bouncing on a trampoline in super slo-mo.  Uuuuuuup . . .  till you can see distant fishing boats, from their waterlines aalll the way up to the tips of their radio antennas.  Then, doowwwwwwn . . and the curve of the earth hides the boat hulls, and all you can see are the spiky conning towers and bristly racks of fishing rods.

More photos from our ocean crossing are coming momentarily . . . in the mean time, if you want to see what we've been up to the last few days there's a new album on Facebook.

And yes, I promise to tell you all about our stop in Forked River, where we eyeballed the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant, met the guy who's helping to install The World's Largest Rooftop Solar Array, and hosted a distinguished Princeton fuel scientist for breakfast.  Check back soon!

We never did hear what happened to Blackberry.